Adrian Dater
PHILADELPHIA – Nathan MacKinnon sized up the competition on their bench, just prior to a late-practice game of 2-on-2 in a rink that spanned from blue line to blue line.
“A lot of beef on that bench,” MacKinnon chirped. “Not a lot of skill.”
That’s the moment right after MacK, blue, far right, got in his chirp. And what happened in the game, you ask?
This:
Team Blue, indeed, had more skill in the end. They won the game. It was the kind of day, though, where there were smiles all around. It was all in fun.
Teams need these kinds of days sometimes. In the long grind of an 82-game regular season, a day of goofiness, of nonconvention, is often what’s best. There was no “bag skate” by coach Jared Bednar after the disappointing loss to the Flyers the night before. No long harangue to the players on the ice. It was a hard, but fun practice, and the mood was still light when the players sat in the visitors’ room of the Wells Fargo Center afterward.
Longtime Avalanche media relations director Jean Martineau was the target of some locker-room jibing, when he wrote the time on a chalkboard of when the team bus would leave. It was 45 minutes or so away, too long for some players. A few, in fact, would end up taking Ubers back to the team hotel rather than wait.
Sitting in his locker stall, veteran Nazem Kadri was asked if practice really still matters to professional players or not. This is the same building, after all, in which former Philadelphia 76ers star Allen Iverson famously said “We’re talkin’ ’bout PRACTICE” when questioned about missing the occasional one.
“You know what, I still get a lot out of it,” Kadri said. “I still take it as an opportunity to watch some of the game’s best players, and learn something new. You see the things they can do exceptionally well, on a regular basis, and you start trying to incorporate that into some of your game. For me, I’m constantly working on things. I think most guys are the same. I feel like you can always get something out of a practice.”
The Avs will hold yet another practice in Philadelphia on Monday morning, before boarding a flight for Buffalo, where they’ll play the Sabres on Tuesday night. For any team, three practices in the same city, plus a game, is a rarity. Most players had plans Sunday night to go out to a nice dinner in Philly and take in the Super Bowl.
For Kadri, a big sports fan, not to mention a fan of good food, this is a time to savor.
“We’re lucky to do what we do,” he said. “Sometimes, you feel that way (not wanting to practice), but whenever you’re away from the game, like we just were for the break, you really miss it.”
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